It is the biggest and most developed bouldering area in the world,[citation needed] and is where the Fontainebleau grading system originated.

At the end of the 1800s, Aldolphe Joanne, the president of the Club Alpin Français, invited foreign visitors to visit the sites of Franchard and Apremont.

[1] In 1900, the Club Alpin Français organised a meet to ascend "the Gorges d'Apremont range" and then go to Larchant, whose huge rocks constitute the "usual practicing area of the Paris Section of CAF."

Before World War II, most of the areas that are popular today were already well known to Parisian climbers, except for Les Trois Pignons, which was not easily accessible by public transport.

Bleausards Robert Paragot, Lucien Bérardini and René Ferlet made the first ascent of the South Face of Aconcagua in 1954.

Initially, there were no formalised routes; climbers would choose the most remarkable boulders, aiming for the highest and most committing ones, as a preparation for the mountains.

The standardisation of route colour by difficulty (Yellow = PD, Orange = AD, Blue = D, Red = TD, Black = ED, White = ED+) dates back to the 1980s.

[2] Today, most Bleau climbing areas are owned by the French state and managed by the Office National des Forêts, in cooperation with the local governments and with climbers' federations.

[citation needed] The typical Bleau landscape is a "chaos" of rocks (no more than a few meters high) spread over a sandy plain.